News

Breathless reporting a couple weeks ago described 2014 as the hottest year on record. Follow-up stories blamed it all on manmade carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and called for instant / immediate government action to solve the problem.

Governor Bill Walker paints himself as a Wally Hickel acolyte, doing everything possible to bring Alaska as the Owner State into being. In this, the Owner State is defined with Alaska and in turn, all Alaskans collectively owning all resources of the state. This worldview defines Walker’s actions and the actions of the Backbone group he represents.

With his action over the weekend on ANWR, President Obama announced that he has morphed from lame duck into troll, with Alaska as his first target. My experience with trolls is that he wants the appropriate thundering response from Alaskans and its elected leadership, while he moves on to the next target.

Perhaps the new budget wars give us here in Alaska the opportunity to start deconstructing the education blob and replacing it with something more responsive to the needs of the parents, students and the working world our children (and ourselves) are having to deal with.

Now that Alaskan commercial fishermen have opted out of the Board of Fish process and started managing their and other resources via lawsuits and ballot initiatives, it is not surprising that local sport fishermen are now starting to use that same technique on them.

There is a 200 mile proposed road in Alaska starting near Fairbanks and stretching west and north to give access to a mining district in the region. It is called the Ambler Road and is in the midst of route selection. There are few roads in that part of the state.

One of the refrains we hear from the Walker-ites and on the talk shows these days is that the fiscal crunch puts “everything on the table.” I would submit that everything is most certainly not on the table, as decisions by the new Walker administration will be driven by their worldview and prejudices just like those before they came into town.

Our “good friends” from NOAA (/sarc) in their effort to “assist” offshore oil and gas exploration and development in the Arctic and Bering Seas designated over 350,000 square miles of Barents, Chukchi and Bering Seas as critical habitat for the protection of the threatened ringed seal.

Sue Asplund of the Bristol Bay Regional Seafood Development Association fired the next round of anti-development cage rattling on the editorial pages of the Dispatch Thursday, this one calling for cancelling oil and gas leases in Bristol Bay for all time. The excuse once again is any development will instantly and irrevocably destroy the fishery for all time.

When we elect a lawyer as governor and they bring their fellow lawyers into the new government, one would logically question whose interests are being pursued? Those of the people of Alaska or those of the law firms employing those lawyers? This is the very essence of crony capitalism.

Interesting election here in Alaska. All four of the democrat sponsored ballot initiatives passed. Three required a yes vote. One required a no vote. Unfortunately for the democrats, the positive outcomes on the initiatives did not drag their candidates across the finish line with them for the most part.

The anti-mining beat goes on, this time in Southeast Alaska, where commercial fishermen and our close personal friends from Trout Unlimited and other greens are trying regulate into oblivion several new mines in British Columbia at the headwaters of several salmon rivers in Southeast.

Laurie Hummel is married to an Alaska Army National Guard Colonel. You don’t get to that rank in what appears to be a dysfunctional, sick outfit without seeing, hearing and knowing things and either looking the other way or playing along. So Laurie, baby: What did you know? When did you know about it? And what did you do about it when you found out?

Democrat candidate Bill Walker had himself a most interesting week this last one. Not only did he take mutually exclusive positions on budget cutting, but he covered up his own campaign incompetence with some good old Messenger Shooting.

Democrats found themselves quite a candidate to run for House District 13 in East Anchorage. Laurie Hummel is a 30-year Army Colonel who is painting herself as the very picture of fiscal restraint. She claims to be running because the last Legislature and LeDoux in particular simply spent too much money.

I have been scratching my head for a long time about the successful use of endless and fraudulent scaremongering by commercial fishermen, greens, other fishing groups whenever the resource development community wants to dig, cut, build, or otherwise rearrange the land and what is on it.

Long time Democrat union hack (redundant) candidate Harry Crawford, fresh off raising your electric rates as a member of the Chugach Board of Directors is running for State Senate against incumbent Cathy Giessel.

Young Alaskans voting for the minimum wage act a lot like chickens voting for Colonel Sanders, as they are going to get a most unpleasant surprise in the days, weeks, months and years to follow their vote in support of this initiative.

Last Wednesday, a lawsuit was filed in the Superior Court for the State of Alaska, Third Judicial District at Anchorage by one Steve Strait challenging a regulation written by LtGov Mead Treadwell allowing the so-called unity ticket to proceed in November’s election.

So what happens when the second largest political party in the state pointedly disenfranchises some 52,000 of its primary voters for governor and 56,000 voters for LtGov? Surprisingly enough, we get a great round of applause, press conferences, smiling faces, positive media coverage, and happy union leaders.